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Showing posts from March, 2018

As state remains indifferent, social tension around Dalit landownership snowballs

By Martin Macwan* The problem of land ownership, as it is being framed after the self-immolation of Bhanubhai Vankar in February, covers less than even the tip of the iceberg. For the Gujarat government, it is politically convenient to describe this incident, and many others, of violence against Dalits as an “atrocity” rather than to recognise them as stemming from the alienation of Dalits from agricultural land. Under the diktats of the Manusmriti, the Shudra had no right to property, which led to laws that prohibited Dalits from buying agricultural land in provinces like Punjab before the Land Ceiling Act — a reason for their backwardness despite constituting over 30 per cent of state’s population. Land ownership for the Dalits first came in the form of “community ownership” in the pre-Independence era, when they were granted “community land” in lieu of the hereditary services they offered to the village. The kings too gave such land to Dalits to remunerate their services to the cour

Why moneylender have resisted all types of socio-economic antibiotics

By Moin Qazi* “In general, the rural moneylender as a species has proved surprisingly resilient, even in countries such as India and Indonesia where it has been a declared objective of state intervention in financial markets to suppress him.” — Hulme and Mosley, Finance Against Poverty A sense of deep despair runs through the lives of farmers in India. They have lost all hope – and also the will to fight. An increasing number have opted for permanent escape from their physical and emotional pain by ingesting deadly pesticides. Almost every farmer in India’s massive rural swathes is tethered, in one way or another, to the sahukar, the Indian variety of the moneylender, the ubiquitous, ravenous loan shark. For centuries, moneylenders have monopolized rural Indian credit markets. Families have lost land, farmers have been asked to prostitute their wives to pay off debts, and, when all else has failed, they have tied the noose to end their misery. Yet the public image of menacing debt co

To improve lives, farmers need a way out of agriculture

By Moin Qazi* "Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied" – Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village” Small farmers are the key to ending poverty and hunger and promoting sustainable development. In India, small and marginal farmers—those who work on less than two hectares (five acres) of land—constitute 80 percent of all farm households, 50 percent of rural households and 36 percent of the total of all households. Sadly, the plight of these farmers is very distressing. Agricultural productivity levels have been stagnant for the past 10 to 15 years. An estimated 70 percent of the country’s arable land is prone to drought, 12 percent to floods, and 8 percent to cyclones. India’s top policy think tank, NITI Aayog, recently found that the agricultural sector is 28 years behind in its expected development. Today, India’s small farmers have little

Gujarat riots: How human rights lawyers worked to hold perpetrators accountable

Gagan Sethi Excerpts from the book “Breathing Life into the Constitution: Human Rights Lawyering in India”, by Arvind Narrain and Saumya Uma, published by Alternative Law Forum – 2: *** The efforts to bring justice to victims of communal violence face the same challenges as faced in efforts to bring justice to victims of caste violence. Victims face enormous pressure to abandon their quest for justice and the institutional bias of the various stakeholders of the criminal justice system is a deterrent factor in the struggle for justice. One distinguishing feature between caste and communal violence is that communal violence is often perpetrated for political gains – the perpetrators enjoy political clout, have political affiliations, or hold public offices; the struggle for justice in cases of communal violence thus brings the human rights lawyers in direct confrontation with the state and its political might. Moreover, unlike challenges to Dalit atrocities, where one can work towards t

India’s outdated water management system can't cope with its burgeoning population

By Moin Qazi* India has long undervalued one of its most precious resources — water. The country’s chronic mismanagement of water is staring at it now. Over 600 million Indians rely on the monsoon to replenish their water sources and the unpredictable nature of rain leaves them vulnerable. The country breaks out in a cold sweat every time the monsoon is delayed. Despite these alarming signals we continue to abuse and use water so profligately. Complex and capricious, the South Asian monsoon which is regarded as the most powerful seasonal climate system on Earth, impacting nearly half the world’s population — has always been hard to predict. With global warming skewing weather patterns, it’s not just the scientists who are confounded. Farmers, who have for generations used the Panchangam, a thick almanac detailing the movement of the Hindu constellations for determine understanding the monsoon lament that their system has lost its reliability. We have ourselves witnessed in some citie

CIC reports 6% dip in RTI applications received by Central government

By Venkatesh Nayak* Through our Rapid Review Reports published since 2013 based on the Annual Reports of Information Commissions across the country, we have been reporting that the number of requests for information submitted to public authorities under the Central Government has been plateauing. Now for the first time since 2005, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has actually reported a 6% dip in the number of RTI applications received by the Central Government. Our preliminary review of the statistics included in the Annual Report of the CIC for the year 2016-17 , uploaded on its website. Trend across the Central Government While more public authorities (1,965) have filed their annual RTI statistics with the CIC in 2016-17 (only 1,903 reported in 2015-16), the number of RTI applications has come down from 9.76 lakhs in 2015-16 to 9.17 lakhs – a dip of 6.1%. If the RTI statistics reported by the Union Territories (1.07 lakhs) are excluded from these figures the dip is 5% of t

Right to Information cases pile up, vacancies in Information Commissions rise across India

By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers will remember our previous efforts to collate data about the use of RTI laws and the working of Information Commissions across India. This year, we mark the 25th anniversary of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative’s (CHRI’s) work in India by releasing the Rapid Review 4.0 (previously named Rapid Study) of the State of Information Commissions and Use of RTI Laws across India. The full report of our Rapid Review 4.0 (click HERE ) was released at the Open Consultation on the Future of RTI: Challenges and Opportunities that we held at New Delhi on March 13. Our major findings are given below: State of Information CommissionsHeadless and non-existent SICs: There is no State Chief Information Commissioner (SCIC) in Gujarat since mid-January 2018. Maharashtra SIC is headed by an acting SCIC since June 2017. There is no Information Commission in Andhra Pradesh (after Telangana was carved out in June 2014). The State Government has assured the Hyderabad High Court

Big bank defaulters can employ legal eagles, can play with judicial system

By Moin Qazi* The world’s great philanthropist and investment leader, Warren Buffett, once said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you realise who has been swimming naked”. Well, it’s the ebb of the tide for many of India’s high-flying crony capitalists like Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, as they find themselves caught in an ignominious buff. Their diamonds may have sparkled on the necklines of world’s acclaimed models, but their names are now dirty blots on the nation’s financial skyline. Their misdeeds have shaken the credibility of India’s $60 billion gem and jewellery industry, which is the country’s second largest forex earner, accounting for about 16 per cent of the total merchandise exports. Similarly, sometimes, it takes a pitch-black economy to reveal who and what in the financial firmament really shine. It is only when darkness falls that the stars start twinkling. The moonshine on an otherwise bleak sky has been made possible by the small honest taxpayers who are transfu

Murder of 11th Gujarat RTI activist 3 months after NHRC seeks govt protection

By Venkatesh Nayak* One more RTI activist has paid the price for demanding transparency with his life in Gujarat. On 9th March, 2018, Nanjibhai Sondarva (35) a resident of Manekwada village in Kotada Sangani taluka of Rajkot district was allegedly clubbed to death by six persons . The deceased’s father has claimed that the attack occurred soon after Nanjibhai filed an RTI application demanding transparency about funds spent on the construction of a road in his village. This was not the first time Nanjibhai had been attacked. He and other members of his family were allegedly assaulted one and a half years ago, by the village Sarpanch who was said to be furious at Nanjibhai for using RTI to expose financial irregularities in the developmental works undertaken in the village. Meghabhai, Nanjibhai’s father, is said to have named the Sarpanch in the complaint submitted to the local police, regarding the latest incident. So far 11 RTI activists have lost their lives for questioning the “Gu

Mendha Lekha model: Alternative path amidst increasing risk to democracy

By Rajiv Shah  In an unusual move, in 2013, tribal residents of Mendha Lekha, a tribal village in Gandchiroli district of Maharashtra, decided to transfer the ownership of their farmlands, about 200 hectares, to the Gram Sabha. This, according to Pallav Das, one of the authors of an article published in the recently-published book “Alternative Futures: India Unshackled” (edited by Ashish Kothari and KJ Joy), happened because villagers considered “land as a community resource and not as individual property.” Calling it a “revolutionary concept of the ‘commons’ (air, water, forests…)”, Das says, the villagers, belonging to the Adivasi Gond community, have not stopped there. They have, in fact, gone a step further by organizing “cultivable land into collective ownership”, adding, “This ensures that the land stays in the ownership of the village and individual owners are not tempted to sell land to land sharks operating in the adivasis region.” He quotes community leader Devaji Tofa as sa

Frustrated by 7 yr bloody war, Syrians yearn for peace, stability, united Syria

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* “I am going to tell God everything!” were apparently the last words of a three-year old Syrian child before she died. These heart-rending words accompanied with a moving picture of a child has been doing the rounds of social media along with thousands of other messages, pictures, videos on the Syrian war. It is hardly possible to authenticate or verify such media. Nevertheless, the words and the picture of the child sums it all: the utter hopelessness and helplessness of a people who have been enveloped in a tragic bloody war which does not seem to end; for many, in the war-torn land of Syria “just to die” seems the only way out and then “to tell God everything!” On the face of it, this sounds rather cynical; but often when despair sets it, hope and resilience take a backseat! February 2018 has been an extremely bad month for Syria and by all counts, the worst phase of the conflict, which began on 15 March 2011. The war until now was mainly concentrated in Homs